Walking Home (8 page)

“Jomo. He said that he could walk to Isiolo if he had to.”

“Isiolo is very far, even farther than Kikima. But
hopefully we will not have to walk.”

“But if we had to we could,” I said. “It is not as if we have much to carry. As you said, you would return with nothing.”

She smiled. “I would return with something very important. I would return with my children—my parents’ grandchildren, the niece and nephew of my brothers, the cousins of their children.”

I understood why, for all those years, returning to her home village had represented the possibility of the end of hope for my mother if she was to be turned away. For me, now, it was the start of hope. And maybe it had rekindled her hope too. But first all that hope had to be in my mother getting better again. Right now she couldn’t even walk to the front gate.

“Good evening!”

The soldier was standing there, a rifle on his shoulder and a smile on his face.

“Good evening, sir,” I said.

“I hope I am not too late for a sample of gazelle.”

“No, sir. I made sure to save you a portion.”

“I thank your son, and I thank you as well, ma’am, for this invitation to join your family.”

“It is our honor,” she said. “Please sit.”

He pulled off the rifle and laid it carefully on the ground, taking a seat on a rock on the opposite side of the fire.

I filled a bowl and handed it to him, and also gave him the serving spoon. It was not right to have a guest use his hands.

He took a big mouthful. “So good,” he raved, looking at my mother. “So very good! You are a cook who is a match for my wife!”

“You are most gracious to say so,” my mother said, “but it was more my son than me.”

“It is wonderful. I must admit, though, that as much as I appreciate the food, it is also good to be sitting around a fire with a family. It has been more than a month since I was with my family.” He took another big mouthful. “Not that I should be complaining, of course, when I know how much worse it has been for the residents of the camp.”

“It is better to be in a tent with your family than in a mansion alone,” my mother said.

“And your family is all here with you?” he asked.

“All that remains.” The last word was said so quietly that it almost couldn’t be heard.

“You are not well,” the guard said to my mother. “Malaria?”

“It has been there for a long time, but it has flared up again of late. Thank goodness my Muchoki is here to care for me.”

“A son is a blessing. I have two sons and a daughter. Not that having a daughter is
not
a blessing,” he
added quickly. “Do you have medicine?”

She shook her head. “Rest, food, warmth are the best. So many here have malaria.”

“So many have other things as well. The hospital tent and the medicine are for those who have diseases that can be spread. The fear is always of an outbreak of cholera or typhoid.”

“And malaria can be suffered by many and spread by none. I understand.”

“I am only a sergeant,” he said, “but if there is help that I can give, please come forward and ask, and I will offer my humble services.”

“You are most generous,” she said. “We greatly appreciate your offer of help. But for now, you must finish your meal and then have more if you wish.”

“I will finish this, but I will not take more.”

“You do not like it?” my mother asked.

“I like it very much, but your family has greater needs than mine. I will not take advantage of the kindness you have offered—especially to me.”

“I do not understand.”

“I am Kalenjin.”

“Kalenjin!” I gasped. “But you speak Kikuyu.”

“I speak many languages. Kalenjin is my tribe.”

I tasted bitterness in my mouth. If I had known he was Kalenjin, I would never have invited him to our tent, never offered an invitation to dine at our side.

Suddenly those fears of the soldiers guarding the camp came rushing back. How many of those who were guarding us were Kalenjin or Luo, and how many were Kikuyu?

“Most of the soldiers here are Kikuyu,” he said, answering my unasked question. “But I am a soldier first and Kalenjin second. I am here to defend the people of my country. I am a Kenyan. I am here to defend
all
my people.”

Those were brave words from a man whose people had attacked the defenseless.

“That is how it is supposed to be. We owe you even greater thanks and are even more honored that you sit with us to share a meal,” my mother said. “Do have news of things … out there?”

“I hear things, but that does not make them true.”

“And have you heard if things have settled?”

“There are still problems. Parts of Nairobi were still aflame this week.”

I thought about Jomo’s father—he had to pass through Nairobi to get to Isiolo. Was that why he had not returned? Because something had happened to him? Should I speak of this to Jomo?

“It was particularly bad in Kibera,” the soldier said.

“Kibera?” my mother asked.

“It is a shantytown in Nairobi. There are so many
people there they cannot even count them. It is reputed to be the biggest slum in Africa.”

“And there were problems in Kibera?”

“Homes were set ablaze, whole sections destroyed and hundreds killed. There, many Luo and Kalenjin were killed by Kikuyu.”

“That is so awful.”

“I heard it was in retaliation for what was done in the western regions, but really it is nothing more than an excuse for people of violent natures to act violently. Still, those people may have spread the fire, but they were not the ones who started it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The politicians who should unite us as Kenyans divided us as tribes. The fault lies with them.” He paused. “I understand that some people were simply reacting to what they saw as violence being done to their people. I don’t excuse their actions, but they were responding to what they heard had happened in the Western Province. It was particularly bad in the area around Eldoret. Stores and homes were burned to the ground, and many people were killed. There were terrible rumors—even reports of a church being set on fire with people in it.”

“No,” my mother said. “Not rumor. We are from Eldoret. We saw it. We lived through it.”

“Now that you have told me, I will never again
call it a rumor. I beg your forgiveness if my words have caused you offense.”

“No offense was taken. I am sorry if I caused upset to our guest,” my mother said.

“We are all upset, but you are not the cause.”

“Rumors replace facts. It is wise to question. Can you tell us about things here in the camp?” my mother asked. “That is, if you are permitted to discuss such issues.”

“I will discuss them with you and trust your discretion,” he said. “What information do you request?”

“Is it true that there are over ten thousand of us here?” she asked.

“There are now over twelve thousand. The number has gone up as new people have come and down as others have left. At one point there were more than fourteen thousand, but others have left for resettlement.”

“Have they gone back home?”

“There are no homes for some and no safety for any.”

“I thought things had settled,” she said.

“Settled but not finished. Violence continues to flare up as retaliation. An eye for an eye will leave everybody blind.”

“If they cannot return to their homes, where are those people going?”

“Many are returning to their tribal areas. Luo are
fleeing Nairobi for the west, and Kikuyu are flooding back into the central areas, especially Nairobi. Do you have people in Nairobi?”

“I think everybody has people in Nairobi, but my family is from the hills of Mbooni district.”

“You are Kamba?” the guard asked.

“I am Kamba. My children are half Kamba and half Kikuyu.”

“It is a shame that every person in Kenya is not half Kikuyu and half Luo. Then none of this would have happened,” he said.

“Within the camp,” my mother asked, “are we safe?”

“All the displaced person camps are being held with integrity by the military.”

“How many camps are there?”

“There are twenty-two larger camps containing almost three hundred thousand people. This camp is large but not the largest.”

“And here things have gone well?” she asked.

“Everybody is hungry, but nobody has starved. Everybody is parched, but nobody is without water.”

“And disease?”

“There have been outbreaks of dysentery and a small pocket of cholera. There have been deaths, but the doctors and nurses are caring for the sick and disposing of the bodies to prevent disease from spreading.”

“We should be grateful,” my mother said. “So many people, so close together, so weak and tired—I’m surprised there has not been more sickness, more death.”

He shrugged. “In time it might get better, or it could get worse. It is wise to leave if you have a place to go.” His expression darkened, and I knew what question was going to come next. “Do you have a place to go?”

I waited for her answer, holding my breath … hoping.

“Yes, there is a place, but it is far away.”

“Close is better than far, but far is better than not,” he said. And with that, he placed the bowl on the ground, stood and picked up his rifle. “I am so grateful for you sharing your meal and kindness and company. If there is some small way I can repay your kindness, I am at your service.”

“No, no. We should be thanking you,” my mother said. “You are a good soldier. You are a good Kenyan.”

I
placed the wet rag on my mother’s forehead. It was hot to the touch. She was burning up, so fiercely that I finally had to move my sister away. She slept on the ground, a blanket wrapped around her to protect her from the cold ground beneath and the cold air above.

The chill couldn’t break my mother’s fever, but at least she was now asleep. For the past few hours she’d been awake, but not really awake. She would cry out, say words and look wild-eyed. I tried to talk to her, to answer her words, but she didn’t seem able to hear me. She was like a madwoman, a woman possessed. And she was—by the fever.

Some of what she yelled out made a twisted sense. Many of her words were so garbled as to not even be words, but still I knew what was haunting her mind.
The anguish in her voice and that look in her eyes—I just knew she was back in Eldoret, in the church. It seemed like the fever in her blood had brought back memories of the fire in the church. It was something she couldn’t drive from her mind, and something that would never leave mine.

“Muchoki!”

I started out of my thoughts. My mother was looking up at me, her eyes wide open and staring into space.

“Yes, Mother, I am here.”

“Your father—go and get your father.”

She was so feverish she was out of her head.

“Go! I need him.”

She did need something, but I didn’t know what more I could do. Maybe a doctor or a nurse at the medical tent would know.

“I’ll go and get help,” I said. “You just stay here and I’ll be—”

Her eyes were closed and she wasn’t moving. Was she …? Was she …?

She took a deep breath and her whole body shuddered, then her eyes closed and she was asleep again. She was just asleep. For a brief second, I thought she had died. That was crazy but not so crazy. People did die of malaria—but not here and not now and not her. I wouldn’t let her. She’d get better, just as she had done a dozen times before, and then we’d leave this camp. I
didn’t know how we’d get there, but I knew where we were going—Kikima. We were going back to the homestead where she was born, and once we got there, everything would be fine—as fine as it could ever be again.

I tucked the extra blanket around my mother to keep her snug in bed. Next I took the cloth from her forehead, dipped it in water and wrung it out, finally placing the cool, damp cloth back on her forehead. Slowly, so as not to jostle the cot, I went over to my sister. She was still sound asleep. In the little bit of light coming from the candle she looked peaceful, as if she didn’t have a worry in the world. Maybe she didn’t. I owned all of those. All the worries were mine to hold, mine to solve … but how?